


Useless

by onlyapapermoon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Amputation, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Decapitation, Eventual Happy Ending, Forced Voyeurism, Galra Trash Party, Gang Rape, Gen, Gore, Graphic Description, Humiliation, Hurt Shiro (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Minor Character Death, More Than Canon-Typical Violence, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Bondage, Nudity, Other, POV Keith (Voltron), Rescue Missions, Shiro (Voltron) Whump, Sorry Shiro, Team Bonding, Whump, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-05-25 07:32:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14972186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyapapermoon/pseuds/onlyapapermoon
Summary: After the team is split up by the malfunctioning wormhole, Keith and Shiro are picked up from the planet they crash-landed on - but not by the Green Lion. Later, free and reunited with the others at the Castle of Lions, Keith has to find a way to find and rescue Shiro, even as the Galra send taunting messages of their leader's torment.(Please note the tags and warnings!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this is going to be a dark fic. Please, please, *please* take care of yourself and read the tags first. If you have questions or if I missed tagging something major, please let me know!

Keith comes to slowly. There are metal walls and a metal floor – he blinks with heavy eyelids – and absolute darkness broken by stars outside the windows… a ship?

 

 _Shiro_ , he thinks. He tries to push himself upright, breath coming too fast even through the lassitude still threatening to pull him down. He has to – he can’t – 

 

The realization that he’s in a Galra ship of some kind comes along with a bout of nausea that he has to will down, panting. There’s only one room in the ship, since empty space is visible through the windows on all sides – he must be in an escape pod. Alone.

 

Keith’s breath comes even quicker and he forces himself into a sitting position, distantly unsure which aching part of himself he should be clutching at. He pushes himself to his knees, then his feet, and staggers to the nearest window. There’s nothing but space beyond. He tries the other windows, propping himself up against the walls to fight the dizziness, but it’s the same in all directions. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No other pods, no Galra fighters in pursuit. No Galra flagship.

 

No Shiro.

 

Alone, Keith screams, his voice trailing off into a ragged rasp.

 

He sobs and slumps down to the floor, back squeaking down the metal wall. He clutches his head, more for the grounding pain than for comfort – he doesn’t get comfort right now, not when he’s physically whole and not with the Galra and Shiro –

 

Again. It happened again. And this time, Keith could have stopped it, if he’d just fought harder when they dragged Shiro away, if he’d managed to keep the two of them away from the Galra when their ship landed on that goddamn planet, if he’d fought _better_ in the battle with Zarkon’s fleet and somehow kept Shiro from getting too injured to fight in the first place… Keith breathes hard and makes himself calm down, even though what he really wants is to scream again. But raging against the world never got him anywhere before, so Keith forces himself to do the breathing exercise Hunk half-seriously taught him.

 

When he can sort of think again, he takes stock of himself. No injuries, not even the ones he sustained trying to keep the Galra soldiers away from a half-conscious Shiro on the planet where their lions had crashed. He stares at his arm where a deep burn should be, and scowls, because being angry is better than shuddering at the thought of them doing things to his body while he was unconscious. Generally, he feels fine, though he aches all over. He chalks it up to the fight and to the way they threw him into a cell with his hands bound so he couldn’t protect himself from the hard metal floor. He’s still in his Paladin armor, for whatever reason, with his Bayard still there, and there’s something off about that. He had assumed that they would have taken it off after they eventually came into his cell and sedated him.

 

Hell, he doesn’t even remember how he came to be in an escape pod. Keith grits his teeth, thinking of how Shiro still doesn’t know the details of his own escape, and hopes that he himself isn’t missing more memories than just those of his escape, too.

 

The thought makes his chest heave a little in panic, but there’s a movement in his peripheral vision and he whirls a little too fast to look out the window. Bracing himself against a wall again, Keith wants to laugh, or cry, or something, because the bright spot is growing larger, and miraculously, it’s the Castle of Lions.

 

-

 

The reunion with the other Paladins seems like it’s off to a joyful, exuberant start as Keith staggers out of the escape pod and into one of the Castle’s hangars, immediately ambushed by a shouting and laughing and crying Pidge and Hunk and Lance. But Keith cuts it short. He shakes his head insistently as they pile around him and just says – or half-shouts, over their greetings – “Shiro. The Galra have Shiro.”

 

There’s a tick of silence, then the shouting starts again at a completely different pitch. It’s mostly Lance demanding what does Keith mean, how did it happen, where are they right now, although Lance also crowds next to him and subtly supports him as he walks. Hunk is wide-eyed and shaking his head, already tearing up a little. Pidge’s face goes ashen and she freezes for a moment before bounding to Keith’s other side and joining in with the panicked questioning.

 

Keith hadn’t noticed Allura and Coran standing just out of range of the initial tackle-hugs, but now he looks up and sees them standing stock-still, Allura frozen in an aborted gesture of greeting.

 

Keith ducks his head a little, still drowning in guilt for having lost Shiro and for apparently abandoning him to face his worst nightmares alone.

 

But Allura reaches out to him and lays a hand on his arm, and she looks a million things right now, but mostly determined. “Where is he? What happened?” Her voice is smooth as always, and though there’s a hardness to it, it’s not aimed at Keith.

 

Keith’s lips press together tightly before he admits, “I don’t know. We landed on the same planet and found each other, but then the Galra found us. We were separated” his voice cracks embarrassingly, but no one cares right now “and they knocked me out. After that, I don’t know. I just woke up in that pod and then you found me.” He stops, and has to ask, “How did you find me?”

 

“There was a distress beacon,” Allura says absently, a deep frown on her face. “We were searching for you and Shiro, but we were having trouble locating your signal from – the lions!” She is suddenly wide-eyed. “Where are your lions?”

 

Keith grits his teeth. Allura obviously already knows the answer to that, and from the gasps around him, everyone else does, too. Still, he says, “The Galra have them.” There is a horrified silence, and he feels compelled to add, “We weren’t on Zarkon’s ship. I don’t know how long it’s been, but I think we were only captured recently. They might not have gotten the lions back to him yet.”

 

It’s a thin hope and he mostly offered it out of a vague sense that he needed to do something to ease the horror on the others’ faces – and he’s _not_ doing that because of what Shiro said, Keith knows he’s not leadership material, but maybe he can’t let Shiro down in this, too – but he really does still feel Red’s presence in the back of his mind, distant but there. He doesn’t think even Zarkon can sever their bond, but it’s still reassuring. She’s there, waiting for him, and he swears that he’s going to get her back one way or another. Her and Shiro.

 

-

 

Keith wouldn’t have bothered with cleaning himself up if Coran didn’t point-blank insist on a decontamination shower to deal with the dust from the planet with the weird geysers and whatever filth he could have picked up on the Galra ship. As it is, he rushes as much as he can so that he can join the others on the bridge, where they’re already working on how to find the Galra ship and Shiro. He briefs everyone on everything he remembers in greater detail this time, and then Hunk and Pidge keep at it, questioning him until his head pounds.

 

An hour later, and they’re no closer to finding the Galra who took Shiro. Keith is pacing, Allura is getting a bit sharp with everyone, and Coran is standing too still as he goes through databases, while the other three panic in their own ways. Keith is starting to growl something he doesn’t actually mean after Hunk’s latest question – they’re going in circles, and every second they waste is another second Shiro is with the Galra – when the large display in front of the bridge shimmers to life on its own.

 

There are shouts of surprise and alarm, because what it’s showing is very clearly not something that came from the Castle.

 

“How is that even being transmitted here, we don’t – “ Whatever Pidge is saying fades away as she apparently registers what the display shows. Keith can’t breathe.

 

He never asked about Shiro’s time as the Champion, not beyond what Shiro was willing to share on his own, so Keith’s mental image of the Arena was vague and sandy and looked a little like the Coliseum, when he let himself think about it.

 

He was right about the sand, but that’s about all.

 

The display shows a large space, a sandy expanse surrounded by tiers and tiers of seats occupied by dark-armored Galra interspersed among countless other aliens, with a few stone pillars interrupting the open ground of the ring. It’s not as big as Keith imagined, but then, he’s not sure if there really is just one Arena, or if there are different ones on each of the big ships. It’s not like Shiro could remember which specific ship he fought in. The image closes in on the figure standing in the middle of the Arena, and Keith realizes that his sense of scale was off and the Arena is larger than he thought, because the person he thought was of a normal size is actually much larger than a human, and familiar.

 

“Sendak?!” Pidge breathes.

 

Keith stares. The Galra looks the same as he did just before he was put in the containment pod, if less beat-up. He’s still huge and menacing, grinning with too-sharp teeth and saluting the crowd with his enormous mechanical arm, now an even more dangerous-looking replacement. Keith has a wild second to wonder how the hell Sendak survived being shot into space and how he found his way back to the Galra Empire, but the camera pans to the side, where a door is opening and someone is thrown out to roll into a crouch on the sand, and the questions don’t matter anymore.

 

It’s Shiro.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is where the *gore warning* sets in. If you want to avoid that, stop reading at "...does not deserve our gifts" and skip ahead to "Shiro is pulled into..." One of the tags and later context will give you a good idea of what happened.
> 
> (Updates will not always be this fast, sorry, this was just a short chapter and the last one left off on a cliffhanger.)

Keith doesn’t hear the others gasp or swear or sob over the pounding of blood in his ears. The image zooms in on Shiro, who is pushing himself up and freezing on seeing Sendak, his mouth moving as if in an echo of Pidge. Keith stutter-steps forward involuntarily, as if that would actually put him any closer to Shiro, off alone on some alien ship, and he frantically looks his friend over from the limited vantage point. Shiro is still in his Paladin armor, only his helmet missing. The wound on his side seems to have been healed, if the way he holds himself is any indication. He’s still exhausted, though; there are dark circles under his eyes and Keith can see the way he falters in pushing himself up to stand.

 

Keith can’t move now, can barely hear above the roar of his own blood, but he still hears it when Sendak says, “The undefeated Champion, returned to the ring.”

 

The camera pulls back to show Sendak and Shiro facing each other, Sendak with a savage grin and Shiro quickly overcoming his shock and baring his teeth in return. Keith hasn’t seen much of this side of Shiro, only glimpsed it in battles, but he can still recognize the way Shiro’s stance unconsciously settles, and he knows that Shiro’s eyes will have gone distant but hyper-focused. Keith feels a stab of fierce pride, for Shiro being faced with his worst nightmare and still gritting his teeth and fighting with everything he has. The pride is followed almost as quickly by terror, though, fear that the familiarity will be too much and Shiro will be dragged into a memory, and this time Keith or the others aren’t there to pull him out.

 

“Galra and Galran subjects,” Sendak calls, voice pitched to carry to the audience, though he’s still facing Shiro, stance easy. “You have gathered to witness the defeat of the one who claims to lead the Paladins of Voltron!”

 

The crowd ripples, but there’s none of the bloodthirsty screaming Keith expected. It seems like the whole audience is leaning forward in anticipation.

 

“This slave thought he could escape and defy Emperor Zarkon, and that was his downfall! He is broken, and has no further use as a tool for the Galra!”

 

Through it all, Shiro has barely moved. Keith knows that his eyes must be darting around to assess the situation, taking advantage of Sendak’s taunting, but it’s hard to make out where he’s looking from the camera’s distance.

 

There’s a ringing silence in the seconds after Sendak finishes, and Shiro clearly locks his attention back onto Sendak. They seem to size each other up for a brief moment. Then they both charge forward.

 

The battle is vicious, both combatants moving almost too fast to keep up with. The air shines with purple after-images of their arms’ glow. No one lands a hit for the first heart-pounding minute and they seem evenly matched. Then Shiro falters for the briefest fraction of a second and Sendak’s blow connects. Shiro is skilled and definitely faster than Sendak, but Keith has sparred with him and fought by his side enough to see that he’s not as nimble as he usually is, exhaustion weighing him down. Keith grits his teeth and clenches his fist and watches, trembling, as Shiro is sent crashing into a pillar.

 

“Pathetic,” Sendak says, stalking forward and raising his arm in preparation to strike again. But Shiro rolls across the sand out of the way of the blow and swipes upward with his purple-glowing hand, scoring a line of scorched fur and burnt flesh up Sendak’s thigh. Sendak roars and tries to retaliate, and for the next minute, it looks as if the fight has turned, burns and shallow gouges appearing one by one on Sendak’s armor and exposed fur.

 

“You can do it, Shiro…” Keith distantly hears Pidge mutter anxiously as they all watch Shiro dodge and slide out of the way of blows that would kill him, jabbing back at Sendak every time they close in.

 

But Shiro is still worn and weakened by his experience on the planet with the geysers, and eventually Sendak gets in another hit of his own. Shiro is knocked to the ground with enough force that his body bounces and rolls and they can practically hear the wind being knocked out of him. Sendak lunges down with his flesh arm outstretched and Keith hears himself make a choked-off noise of horror, but rather than finishing Shiro off, Sendak chooses to lift his struggling form in the air and hurl him at least several yards away.

 

Shiro’s body skips and rolls to a stop in a cloud of dust and there’s a split-second before he groans and starts pushing himself up again where Keith’s stomach drops out and he’s sure he just saw his closest friend die.

 

“This seems almost unsporting,” Sendak says, as if musing aloud. His posture is that of a tiger toying with its meal. Keith’s sudden apprehension cuts short any relief he might have felt a second ago. “Why don’t we give him a chance, let him try to prove that he’s not totally useless...” Sendak gestures, and this was clearly planned from the start, because someone from a lower tier of seats stands and throws something toward Shiro. It lands in a cloud of dust and slides neatly to a stop next to where Shiro has just finished pushing himself into an unsteady crouch.

 

From the angle, Keith can’t see what it is until Shiro hesitates, looking at the thing, then picks it up. It’s a blade of some kind, almost rectangular with a hook on the end, not a kind that Keith recognizes from Earth, but Shiro’s movements show that he’s familiar with it. Shiro glances down at the sword, tilts his head slightly, then something in his posture steadies and he stands up. It’s a look Keith recognizes, one that says Shiro has a plan, and Keith feel a little tug of hope – Sendak may have meant to taunt Shiro with the weapon, but Shiro’s smart, and this could be the thing that turns the tide.

 

Sendak and Shiro both charge towards each other again, and Shiro’s moving slower than before, looking winded. “Come on…” Keith hears Hunk whine anxiously. Sendak grins and closes in, arm swinging back in the wind-up to a blow. Shiro seems to falter, and just when dread is gripping Keith’s heart, Shiro drops abruptly to his knees and slides, Sendak’s arm whipping up the air just over his head. The sword, held over Shiro’s head with both hands, slices neatly through the gap of glowing energy between Sendak’s shoulder and arm.

 

A shocked cheer rises from the Paladins and Allura, and Coran whoops. The purple ball of energy connecting Sendak’s arm to his body falters.

 

And then it glows back to life.

 

Sendak is pivoting, unnaturally agile as ever for someone of his bulk, and charges at Shiro from behind with a triumphant roar. Shiro’s forward momentum is just stopping, and he’s turning to face Sendak again even as he skids over the sand, but Sendak reaches him first. One massive knee collides with Shiro’s back and shoves him back down face-first on the ground. The armor probably saves Shiro’s ribs from being crushed under Sendak’s weight, but they can hear the air being punched from his lungs.

 

They skid together over the floor for a few more feet, and when the dust clears, Sendak is holding the sword in his massive mechanical hand, knee planted in the middle of Shiro’s back and pinning him down.

 

Sendak grins through bloody teeth, the expression even sharper than before despite his panting for breath. He raises his head and calls to the crowd, “And this is why the Galra will always be victorious! We gave this slave a chance to serve, gifted him with one of our greatest weapons, but in the end, his weakness won out.” Sendak points the sword at Shiro’s Galra arm, braced against the sand as Shiro struggles to pull himself away. “He is useless, and weakness has no place with the Galra! He does not deserve our gifts!”

 

Sendak reaches with his flesh arm, grasping Shiro’s metal wrist and wrenching it away from his body. Shiro doesn’t have time to react before his arm is stretched out away from him, and his hand is only beginning to glow to life when Sendak sneers and raises the sword in his monstrous hand.

 

Keith realizes what is about to happen fractions of a second before it does, but he still feels like he watches the sword descend in slow motion.

 

There are gasps and a shriek from somewhere around him, and Hunk is starting to heave off to the side, but Keith is frozen when the blade slices down and down and all the way through Shiro’s remaining bicep, an inch above where the Galra tech begins.

 

The hand’s purple glow instantly dies as Shiro’s entire body arches and he screams. It looks like Shiro’s body is trying to convulse beneath Sendak’s weight, but Sendak ignores him. Sendak picks up the severed arm, metal and a good inch of scarred flesh still welded together, blood running down toward the metal, and shows it to the crowd. He rises to his full height.

 

“The Galra are rid of his weakness!” Sendak roars. “Vrepit Sa!”

 

The crowd finally responds, standing in an irregular wave and shouting in unison, “Vrepit Sa!”

 

Shiro’s choked noises continue as the watching aliens placidly return to their seats, and Sendak carelessly tosses the arm over his shoulder. It lands on the bloody sand with a sound that can barely be heard over Shiro’s stifled cries, but it still prompts another bout of retching from Hunk.

 

Keith is still frozen, hot and cold running through his veins in dizzying alternations, and he has to watch as Sendak casually steps over Shiro’s form and walks out of the Arena without looking back. Shiro is curled into himself now and desperately holding his remaining hand over the stump of his bicep, as if he’ll be able to stop the torrent of blood, until a pair of sentries reach down and grab him. One has him by his good arm and the other by the torn fabric over the back of his neck, and they drag him over the sands as he writhes and falters to get his legs under him, a trail of crimson soaking into the thirsty sand behind them.

 

Shiro is pulled into the darkness beyond a door, and the last they see of him is wide, wild eyes and his mouth pulled into a rictus of agony. Before he completely disappears into the darkness, the display flickers and blips out of existence.

 

The Paladins, Allura, and Coran are left staring into the empty space ahead. There is breathless silence, broken only by Hunk’s ragged coughing and at least one person heaving in quiet sobs.

 

Keith turns on his heel and strides out of the room. His feet speed him through the corridors without conscious thought, which is good because his mind seems to be full of nothing but static. When he’s next aware of himself, he’s in the training room. The fingers of one hand are wrapped tight around the hilt of his dagger, sensation lost in them from the pressure. He stares unseeingly at the ground, then screams in frustration and falls to his knees, pounding the floor with a fist. Shiro was – what had they _done_ to him, how the hell could they – what right did they have to just – Keith screams again, uselessly venting his rage.

 

Lance finds him like that some amount of time later. Keith is practically curled into a ball on the floor and breathing hard.

 

“Keith?” Lance’s voice is reedy and unusually hesitant, and when Keith snaps his head up to look at him, teeth unconsciously bared, Lance actually takes a step back, raising his trembling hands. “Whoa, buddy. I know. I _know_. But we can still save him.”

 

When Keith just keeps looking at him, but makes no move to respond, Lance swallows and starts talking again. His face has a sickly pallor still and his expressions and gestures are too sharp and stilted, but his voice only shakes a little as he speaks. “Look, Pidge and Hunk went to the escape pod. They think they can retrieve the coordinates where it launched from, okay? That’s a start. And Coran has some kind of algorithm he can run to figure out where the ship’s gone from there. Shiro – Shiro’s alive. If they wanted to – ” Lance’s voice breaks a little, but he swallows and recovers, “If they wanted to kill him, they already would’ve. We can still save him.”

 

Keith keeps staring at Lance, and he hears his own low voice say, “It’s a trap. They’re trying to lure us in.” He almost growls at himself for saying it, but it doesn’t make a difference, anyway. Trap or not, the Galra will regret this.

 

Lance nods shakily. “Yeah, probably. But we’re working on a plan for that.” He stands there a second longer, then takes a leading step back. “Come on,” he says, “we could use you up there.”

 

Keith is still for half a second, then pushes himself fluidly to his feet. His eyes harden and he nods, and follows Lance back to the bridge.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the *non-con warning* comes in.

“Stay alert,” Allura orders the Paladins unnecessarily. The four of them hover, tense, near the exit from the bridge. The wormhole is taking them to a point just beyond detection of the flagship, if it’s where they think it is, and from there they plan on going closer in the Green Lion only. The four Paladins need to be in a central location for now, though, rather than with Green, in case their original plan goes to shit and they have to scatter to the remaining three Lions to defend the Castle instead. There’s a swooping sensation in Keith’s stomach as they emerge from the wormhole.

 

But they emerge into empty space. There’s a star closer than the others with specks that might be planets around it, but even that is very far in the distance. Otherwise, Keith can’t see anything other than distant stars.

 

Allura takes a deep breath. “Coran, do a sweep of this system.”

 

Coran nods sharply and does something with his display, swiping his hands around the glowing floating images, twisting and turning it this way and that. His hands pause, then he repeats the process a bit slower. Even from behind, Keith can see the points of Coran’s mustache move in the way that means he’s frowning hard. Coran’s hands move faster, almost frantically searching.

 

“Coran?”

 

At Allura’s voice, Coran’s shoulders slump minutely. “Nothing, princess,” he reports. He sounds subdued. “Nothing at all.”

 

Keith feels his body tense and he shouts, “Try again!”

 

“I did try again!” Coran almost snaps, then composes himself and stands straighter. “I’m sorry, but they aren’t here.” He takes a visible breath and shakes himself out, hips to torso to shoulders to arms to hands. “Okay. I’ll start searching, see if they left any kind of resonance, and if that doesn’t work – ”

 

Coran’s voice cuts off as the display screen shimmers to life once more. Everyone sucks in a gasp of dread almost simultaneously.

 

This time, there’s nothing on the screen. Nothing, except a gray metal wall, illuminated by faint purple light. The only sound seems to be harsh breathing, uneven and wet-sounding, until Keith notices other soft noises like fabric swishing and some kind of quiet hiss. There’s just enough time for Lance and Hunk to look at each other in confusion in Keith’s peripheral vision, then the hiss gets louder, sharpening to a whine, and the breathing picks up before Shiro’s voice slurs, “Wait, no, what are you…” His voice trails off and even the sound of breathing stops, leaving only the menacing whine and then – Shiro screams.

 

Everyone on the bridge flinches, eyes wide, and Keith hears himself scream, “Shiro!”

 

No one even reacts to Keith’s outburst because it can barely be heard over Shiro’s agonized screaming. The sound faintly echoes as if in a large empty room, and everyone flinches and gasps when a fine spray of red spatters against the wall in the image. Someone on the bridge whimpers, but Shiro’s screaming doesn’t stop, going on and on and growing ragged – and then the video cuts out. The display blips out of existence like any other transmission, and the Paladins are left staring once again.

 

“Why?” someone whimpers, and Keith realizes it’s Pidge. She’s crouched on the floor, hands over her ears, and she almost yells, “What are they doing to him? Why would they send us that? It doesn’t even make sense!”

 

“They’re taunting us,” Allura states blankly. “Trying to throw us off-guard.” She’s standing as stiffly as Keith, eyes as hard as he’s ever seen them. “Did anyone catch anything useful? Any signs of what kind of ship that might be?”

 

No one has anything to volunteer.

 

Keith feels something boiling inside him, and he can’t be near other people again. He shoves past Hunk and Lance, almost running out the door. He hears someone call after him, but doesn’t stop, pelting through the corridors until he reaches his room. He slams his hand against the button to manually close the door a little too hard, but it still descends at its usual speed, and Keith is irrationally angry for a second that he can’t even slam a goddamn door anymore.

 

Keith’s knees give out and he collapses to sit on the bed, burying his head in his hands. He can feel himself shaking, remembering the sound of Shiro’s screams – what were they doing to him now? How much more of him were they going to take away?

 

“Keith?” someone calls, pounding on the door. Lance. “Keith?”

 

Keith doesn’t even look up, so his voice is muffled when he shouts, “Give me a minute!”

 

“Look, you don’t have to be alone right now! Come out, we’re worried,” Lance calls.

 

Keith shakes his head. “Maybe I want to be alone!” he snaps. They shouldn’t be worried about _Keith_. He’s not the one trapped on a Galra ship, probably strapped back on a table and getting tortured, for fuck’s sake. His hands shake.

 

Keith almost misses the small beep from the tablet tucked next to his pillow over the sound of Lance trying to coax him out and his own harsh breaths. It beeps again, though, and Keith turns his head to look at it reflexively. He’s still figuring out the extent of the tablet’s functions, but it’s definitely indicating that he has a message. Keith stares at it through his hair. Why would anyone send him a message now? The others all know he wants to be alone, and they already sent Lance after him, so…

 

He freezes. What if it’s Shiro? He doesn’t know how that would be possible, but Shiro’s resourceful, and Keith’s hands are scooping the tablet up faster than his brain can work. He taps the message symbol with a trembling finger, completely tuning out Lance’s increasingly worried questions.

 

A hologram pops up above the tablet, and it feels like Keith’s blood has been flash-frozen. Instead of Shiro, there’s a Galra guard standing there, the display showing him from the shoulders up. The top of his face is covered by the uniform helmet, but his mouth is grinning. “Red Paladin,” the Galra says, and no, he’s not a regular guard, his armor is a bit fancier but this isn’t an officer Keith recognizes – maybe it’s Haxus’ replacement? “It’s been two quintants, you must be missing your leader by now. We know that he misses you – he was screaming for you earlier.”

 

Keith can’t move. His world is narrowed down to the hologram glowing in the air. The Galra officer is still grinning like a shark, like something is amusing him, and nothing that amuses the Galra can be good.

 

“Keith!” someone gasps, and Keith doesn’t realize at first that it’s coming from the hologram. “Keith, don’t listen to them, they’re trying to get to you, don’t – ” Shiro’s voice is cut off by the dull sound of an impact on flesh and a gasp.

 

Whatever is filming pulls back until Keith can see the entirety of the Galra that was speaking and also Shiro on the floor, surrounded by three Galra guards. One of them obviously just kicked Shiro and he’s curled around his ribs, but there’s no position that could hide the fact that they’ve taken away his clothes for whatever twisted reason and he’s naked now. Keith’s heart seizes. Shiro looks up at the camera, gritting his teeth and managing to get out “I’ll be fine, don’t give them anything” before he’s kicked again. The stump of his right bicep is no longer bleeding. It looks scarred and poorly healed, but no blood is visible anymore, and the jagged lines of new scar tissue make Keith think of lighting burns. He’s still bruised from the fight before, but nothing is bleeding and his wounds have been closed somehow.

 

Keith tries not to look anywhere but at Shiro’s face, but one of the guards reaches down to grab Shiro by the stump of his arm and hauls him to his feet, exposing all of Shiro’s body to the camera and the Galra in the room.

 

Keith has walked in on Shiro changing a number of times, to the point where it became a running joke back at the Garrison, but it’s only happened once since they were reunited and on the Castle. That last time ended more awkwardly than the others, Shiro seeming newly body-shy after his time with the Galra. The scars visible now are mostly the same as then, but they still make a part of Keith burn with hate, and now there are new ones, too. Shiro is visibly flushing with humiliation as he’s exposed to the camera, his remaining hand coming down to cover his groin as best he can. The Galra chuckle. Shiro still stands as tall as possible, tiny next to the Galra as he never has been with humans, and Keith feels a surge of stupid pride all the same. Then Keith sees the collar and his vision goes red for a second. The Galra have forced a thick metal collar around Shiro’s neck like he’s an animal, or a slave. It’s smooth and silver with a few blinking purple lights on the outside, and Keith wants to kill them.

 

The officer gestures to one of the other Galra, and the soldier reaches over to swipe a finger across the side of the collar, Shiro trying to flinch away but just coming up against another soldier’s hold. A line of glowing cable or something spools out of the front of the collar and the soldier grabs it, jerking it roughly once it hits a length of about a foot and a half. The cable stops coming and the officer nods. The soldier holding the cable gives it a tug downwards. Shiro resists until a soldier behind him appears to sigh and shoves him roughly between the shoulder blades, sending Shiro to his knees, his hand coming down to keep him from slamming face-first into the floor. While Shiro is off-balance, the soldier with the cable does something involving it and the floor so that the end of the cable appears to merge into the metal. When Shiro snarls and tries to push himself up again, the cable catches and holds, keeping him leashed and on his hand and knees.

 

“Keith!” Distantly, he can hear Lance yelling, “Keith, come on, now I’m really worried! What’s going on?”

 

The officer grins at the camera again as its angle adjusts to show him and Shiro better, Shiro still tense on the floor, craning his head back so he can look defiantly at the officer. Shiro’s glance flickers to the camera and he says, in that leader-voice that drives Keith up a wall sometimes, “Keith. It’s going to be okay.”

 

The Galra all laugh at that, and one dares to even reach down and pat Shiro on top of the head. Shiro’s arm snaps up and he almost gets hold of the Galra’s wrist, but it’s pulled out of reach before he can make contact.

 

“He’s not much of a champion anymore,” the officer tells the camera, almost conspiratorially, “but we don’t agree with Sendak, don’t worry. He’s not _completely_ useless now.”

 

One of the soldiers disappears out of the frame and one of the others kneels down, grabbing Shiro from behind. He puts his large clawed hands on Shiro’s hips and pulls, nearly sending Shiro sprawling onto the floor, but Shiro catches himself and ends up on his hand and knees again, looking furious and mortified in equal parts. When Shiro tries to kick out, the third soldier grabs his leg and squeezes it harshly until Shiro makes a pained sound, then pins it to the floor. The other soldier comes back into the frame holding something, but for the moment Keith is glaring hatefully at the two soldiers who between them arrange themselves and Shiro so that one is next to him, holding his hips up on either side, and the other is sitting back, pinning Shiro’s ankles to the floor.

 

When Keith finally sees what the remaining soldier is holding, his brow furrows for a second. It’s a metal rod with long grooves going down it, thin at one end and about two feet long, and the thicker end the soldier holds appears to have a comfortable, Galra-sized grip, like a baton. Keith’s eyes narrow and his teeth grind together; he assumes they’re going to beat Shiro with it at first, even as the soldier kneels down on the open side of Shiro and puts a hand on the small of Shiro’s back, his large hand practically spanning Shiro’s waist. The officer finally turns away from the camera to look down at Shiro’s futile struggles against too many Galra hands, and the camera pans around to an angle slightly behind Shiro and off to the side.

 

Shiro is gritting his teeth and trying to pull away, but he doesn’t even have the purchase of two hands anymore, and he’s starting to look scared despite himself. The fear is quickly hidden away behind a mask of stubborn determination, though, when Shiro notices whatever is recording this again and remembers.

 

Then the soldier holding the rod turns his hand on Shiro’s back so he can reach down with a finger and thumb and dig them into the meat of Shiro’s ass on either side, pulling his cheeks apart. Keith’s mind goes blank and Shiro’s struggles increase. Slowly, like he’s making a show of it – and the way he glances at the camera smugly shows that he is – the soldier with the rod angles it so it’s resting against Shiro’s obscenely exposed asshole and starts pushing until the tension gives and the tip shoves inside. Shiro makes a choked noise and his arm gives out, dropping his upper body to the floor, but the Galra holding his hips doesn’t budge, and Shiro is left with his ass in the air and his shocked face on the floor.

 

Keith doesn’t know what horrible noise he makes, or how Lance does it, but the door is somehow open and Lance is in the room and Keith should hide the display somehow, maybe throw the tablet against a wall and shatter it, but he can’t make himself move. Lance takes a few steps forward before registering Keith’s expression and frowns, takes another step, then obviously sees what Keith is staring at. Lance makes a strangled sound and stumbles forward, collapsing on the bed next to Keith and leaning in like he’s seeing the image wrong and it will go away if he looks harder. Keith wishes.

 

“What the” Lance breathes, sounding ill.

 

Keith manages to shake his head, gaze still fixed on the display.

 

Shiro’s expression can only just be seen at this angle, but as the rod pushes further in, his face crumples and he presses his forehead against the ground, making a pained sound. The soldier holding the rod smirks and withdraws the rod a little, making Shiro’s hole cling to it as it pulls out, then pushes it in again, deeper. Shiro gives a cut-off whine of horror, and Lance makes a similar sound beside Keith.

 

“Keith, what’s going – ” The rest of the question fades off.

 

Keith answers anyway, though he can’t bring himself to look away, and he says, like the words are gutting him, “They’re – I can’t – they told him I can see what’s happening.” It’s like a confession, and he manages to get out, “I don’t know why.”

 

He can’t stop watching though. He can’t leave Shiro alone. And he needs to _know_. If this is the last thing he sees of Shiro, he’ll destroy every last one of them, but he has to be there, however he can. He’s been left wondering what was happening to Shiro before. This is probably worse than not knowing, but he has to.

 

“Shit.” It’s rare that Lance actually swears using real English profanities, and it’s enough to draw Keith into reality a little bit. Lance leans against Keith’s side and wraps an arm around his shoulder fiercely. Keith starts, but Lance grips him tighter. “I’m not leaving you alone, okay?” His voice shakes but he doesn’t move. “We’re gonna get through this together, and then we’re gonna make them pay.”

 

Keith freezes, then nods. Part of Keith wants to protest that Shiro wouldn’t want anyone seeing this at all, let alone more than just Keith, but when Shiro in the display lets out a sharp grunt at a harsh jab of the rod and his broad shoulders shake, Keith just isn’t strong enough, and he lets Lance cling and stay.

 

The soldier with the rod keeps methodically pumping it in and out, and from the shine on it and smeared around Shiro’s asshole, it seems like some kind of viscous liquid is seeping out of the grooves to make the slide easier. Just when Shiro’s tense shoulders and back are starting to relax in fits and starts, and the other soldiers are starting to look a bit bored, the soldier with the rod flicks something on the grip with his thumb, and the gaps between the grooves appear to widen – no, the thin end of the rod is expanding, unfurling so that its width increases with every shove into Shiro’s body. Shiro makes an involuntary sound of confusion, then tenses again and hisses when he clenches around the larger intrusion.

 

“Shit,” Lance says again, and Keith grits his teeth until it hurts. Every time he thinks it can’t get worse, the Galra go and prove him wrong, and he’s terrified to see how much farther this is going to go before the end.

 

Shiro’s struggles make no more of a difference now than they did before. He tries to push himself up with his shaking arm, only to be arrested by the cable to his collar going taut, and he has to slump back down. The four Galra are nearly ignoring him at this point.

 

“Guys,” one of the soldiers, the one at Shiro’s ankles, says to the others, “How much longer is this going to take? I promised Thalrag a spar.”

 

The soldier at Shiro’s hips heaves a sigh and says, “Seriously? You can spar with Thalrag any day. He can wait however long it takes to get this” he takes a hand off Shiro’s far hip just long enough to land a hard smack across Shiro’s ass, dislodging the rod and making Shiro cry out, “going, you know he’s just going to lose in five doboshes anyway.”

 

“Hey!” the soldier with the rod objects, glaring at the soldier who just spoke, even as they all harshly readjust their grips on Shiro, who took the opportunity to try and jerk free again. “Watch it, our orders were not to break him right away.”

 

“Besides,” the officer chimes in, looking more amused than anything as he wanders over near the camera, almost disappearing out of the frame, “when’s the next time Sendak will hand down what we catch with these orders? This is way more interesting than sparring.”

 

Lance’s hand tightens on Keith’s shoulder to the point of pain, but Keith is well beyond caring about that. He’s going to kill these Galra right after Sendak. He drags his eyes away from the way Shiro’s back arches as the rod is forced back in, and tries to memorize anything about these soldiers that he can. There are few distinguishing features visible, but he thinks he recognizes them as the ones who landed the final blows on him and Shiro when they were captured.

 

He’s so focused that he almost doesn’t notice Lance’s sharp inhalation. “Keith,” Lance says. The camera angle is moving again, and Keith doesn’t get it until Lance physically points and says, “The windows, quick, let me…”

 

It takes a tick for Keith to see that Lance is talking about the windows that have been exposed by the new angle. There are stars and darkness visible beyond it… and a handful of planets at varying distances. One of the farther ones is large and gaseous and an eye-searing shade of magenta, and the nearest is rocky, with strange outcroppings of something green and sparkling.

 

Keith drags in a breath as well, and Lance is already pulling up the wrist display on his armor, carefully scanning the image so that he catches the windows and nothing else of what’s happening in the room. The camera moves again, and now is facing toward a plain wall with a door, but Lance clenches a fist in victory.

 

“Got it! I’m sending this to Allura,” Lance says, his voice tight. “We can see if she recognizes where he is.” Lance stands up from the bed and Keith is momentarily distracted by the stab of hope as he watches Lance type something out and send the image to the bridge. His attention is drawn back to the hologram by a stifled cry from Shiro, though. The new camera angle is zoomed in to show Shiro from the front, his strong frame looking too small compared to the monsters behind him, his arm curled in front of his downcast face, white bangs flopping over his forearm and damp with perspiration. Two of the soldiers behind him are jeering at something, and Shiro’s shoulders jerk a little.

 

Keith barely sees Lance make an aborted movement toward the door, then hesitate, but he feels it when Lance settles beside him again, throwing the same arm over his shoulders, their Paladin armor clanking together. “I sent it,” Lance says, hushed again. “They’ll tell us when they find something, and set a course right away.”

 

“Good,” Keith says, his throat feeling too tight. Shiro is shaking a little bit now, and he can see from the arm movements that the soldier with the rod has stopped thrusting, and is twisting it instead.

 

He and Lance watch in grim silence as the torment continues, the camera angle panning out and changing every now and then, and they keep an eye out for any new details whenever the windows are in view. The Galra talk sometimes, chatting like they’re watching an idle game of chance and not systematically violating the best person Keith knows. Shiro seems to be keeping himself under control as much as he can, but they can still see the way he tenses up all over when the soldier with the rod withdraws it, the previously-thin end now expanded to a horrifying diameter the size of Keith’s fist.

 

“I think we’re good to go,” the soldier with the rod says, standing up and groaning as his knees crack a little.

 

“Good,” the officer says, grinning that shark grin again. “I’m pulling rank on all three of you, though,” he says, like some inside joke, and his hands go to the armor around his neck, fiddling with something until there’s a click and he removes the pieces of metal covering his torso one by one. He’s left with only his arms and legs armored and his helmet on, but the bodysuit beneath outlines his muscles and somehow makes him look even bulkier, and Keith and Lance both make incoherent noises of horror and rage when he reaches down and undoes something in the fabric over his groin, pulling out something that... must be his penis, Keith has to assume.

 

“Fuck,” Lance breathes. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

 

Keith feels like he’s floating for a second, only registering morbid curiosity upon seeing the officer’s dick; it’s roughly the shape of a human penis, but there are no balls visible and the first few inches are sharply tapered, leading into an odd ridge of – god, he hopes those aren’t little spines – and then a thick shaft, larger than the rod they used, even at its final size. There are weird veins pulsing blue under the thin purple skin, and as the camera comes around to an angle almost behind the officer, Keith sees the length of it – it’s thankfully not as long as he feared, from the overall size of the Galra, but it’s still not reassuring. The moment the officer moves, Keith plummets painfully back to reality.

 

Shiro has obviously noticed the pause after the rod was taken out, and he shakily pushes himself up on his arm enough to look behind him. Keith almost chokes on his own anger, seeing the expression on Shiro’s face as what’s about to happen registers.

 

Lance’s hand on his shoulder grips harder than ever as the officer moves in to kneel behind Shiro and Keith is sure he hears the Paladin armor creak. The officer waves off the two soldiers restraining Shiro. Shiro takes the moment they let go to roll onto his back so he can kick wildly, catching the officer in the jaw and neck a good three times before the officer is able to wrestle him back onto his front, manhandling his way to kneel between Shiro’s legs and spreading them painfully far apart so he’s exposed completely to the camera. The officer grabs his hips with both hands and lifts up until Shiro’s ass is level with the officer’s groin. Shiro has to brace himself with his one arm as he gets his awkwardly bent legs under himself enough to take some of the weight.

 

The camera – it has to be a drone filming, with how fast and smoothly it moves – shifts so quickly the image blurs, so that they’re seeing Shiro’s face from probably two feet away as the officer apparently pushes inside.

 

Keith would give anything to be there right now, fuck escaping and fuck saving the universe, he wants to rip the officer’s heart out with his bare hands. Shiro is clenching his teeth to stifle a sound of pain, eyes screwed shut and brows furrowed and his fist clenched so hard his fingers go white. In contrast, his face is red, redder than it ever was when he was getting teased back at the Garrison or coming back from a long run; and Keith isn’t sure if that has more to do with being held nearly upside down or the humiliation. Shiro is being rocked harshly by the officer’s thrusts, fighting to keep his arm under him so his face isn’t dragged back and forth over the floor.

 

“Fuck,” Lance says again, and Keith thinks he might be crying.

 

They keep watching and Keith can’t look away, not when Shiro will occasionally manage to open his eyes and accidentally make eye contact with the camera, only to clench his jaw and look away again. He doesn’t know if it makes it better or worse for Shiro to not be completely alone right now, but Keith refuses to turn the display off and comfort himself with ignorance of what’s happening, not when Shiro doesn’t have that option. The officer’s grunts and sounds of pleasurable effort are a nauseating background track to the muted clapping of flesh on fur and slick sounds that Keith really doesn’t want to think about.

 

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the officer growls and makes a few shorter thrusts before stilling. Shiro tenses up, then appears to relax slightly, slumping his shoulders and dropping his forehead down on his arm.

 

It’s a false calm, though, because when the officer jerks himself backwards, pulling out, Shiro’s head snaps up and he yells hoarsely. Keith remembers the backwards-pointing little spines on the officer’s dick and goes white. The officer just smirks, still looking blissed out, and drops Shiro’s hips, letting him collapse to the floor. Shiro cringes and tries to curl into himself, scooting forward away from the Galra until he’s stopped by the cable to his collar going taut.

 

The Galra are doing something odd behind him with hand gestures, but Keith ignores it in favor of staring at Shiro, who is looking up and noticing the camera and trying too hard to curl his mouth in a smile. “Keith,” he says quietly, his voice a bit hoarse from screaming, “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me, just keep safe, alright? They want you angry. I think – ”

 

Shiro is cut off as one of the soldiers grabs one of his ankles and yanks, pulling him right back to where he was. Shiro manages to look over his shoulder and snarl at the soldier who’d been holding the rod before he’s being wrestled back into the same position. This time, he seems prepared, and only grits his teeth and flinches when the soldier shoves in. He seems determined to remain stoic as the soldier makes erratic thrusts into him and this annoys the soldier enough to reach down and grab him by the bangs, yanking his head up painfully until Shiro is scrabbling to keep his arm under him and bearing some of his weight. Shiro gasps a little when the movement torques his neck into an uncomfortable position, prevented from going any higher by the lead on the collar.

 

As Shiro grimaces and his neck bulges against the collar’s restriction, the soldier starts to talk, sounding winded by effort and pleasure. “What is it? Do you have nothing to say to your Red Paladin now?” he asks, almost crooning the question in a bass rasp. “Nothing to tell him? Are you not going to confess you were never a real soldier?” He pounds into Shiro a few more times, obviously enjoying himself, before picking up the thread again. “Poor little slave, you just wanted to be a good bitch for the Galra, and then everyone kept making you fight…”

 

Shiro makes a strangled noise of rage and does something with his legs out of the camera’s view that makes the soldier’s own legs collapse and sends him crashing to the floor on top of Shiro in surprise, and Shiro is immediately trying to roll them over, twisting so he can reach back for the soldier’s throat. The Galra on top of him has the advantage of strength and weight, though, as well as having both arms, so Shiro is subdued after a short tussle and the Galra resumes thrusting into him with a new vicious energy, laying flat on top of Shiro and pinning him face-down again. The other Galra in the room don’t bother moving to assist him.

 

Not much of Shiro is visible underneath the soldier anymore, but Keith can see when Shiro stops fighting. Keith leans forward in fear, while the soldier seems to think that Shiro has given in and slows his thrusts, mocking, “Good, I see you’ve accepted your place.”

 

One of the remaining soldiers laughs, but the other and the officer are half-distracted by their own aimless conversation.

 

Thankfully, the soldier only goes on a little longer before finishing, and there’s a whole-body twitch from Shiro where he’s laid out on the ground when the soldier pulls out, but now that he’s exposed to the camera again, Keith swears. Shiro is glassy-eyed and shaking, and he can hear Lance’s exclamation when he realizes that Shiro has slipped off to somewhere else. Keith hopes to hell that the trigger was just from being pinned down and immobilized, not anything else.

 

The soldier who’d been holding Shiro’s ankles in the beginning comes over to replace the previous one between Shiro’s legs, but he pauses when Shiro fails to react. “Weren’t you the one who said not to break him?” he calls out accusingly at the soldier who is already putting his armor back on.

 

The other soldier peers closer at Shiro and shrugs. “The parts you’re interested in still work, I’m not sure what you’re complaining about.” The officer and third soldier do laugh at that, and the murderous fire rages through Keith again.

 

The soldier between Shiro’s legs groans, but grabs him by the hips and starts hoisting him up. There’s a second of delay before Shiro shocks back to awareness upon his back end being hauled into the air. Keith cringes, and isn’t sure if it’s for the better or worse, because this time Shiro can’t hold back the scream as the soldier, apparently thicker than the previous two, lines himself up and yanks Shiro onto his dick. It goes on and on, Shiro visibly trying to regain the control he’d only just managed, but the soldier is too fast and vigorous, and it looks like it’s all Shiro can do to not slam his face into the floor with each thrust. By the end of it, Keith and Lance are both breathing fast and shallow as they try to fight off nausea.

 

Lance actually does need to scramble off the bed and kneel in a corner of the room for a moment when the soldier pulls out and his dick is visibly streaked in red. Shiro is shaking and his eyes are gleaming with moisture when the camera zooms in on his face, and he closes them in shame against the sight of lens. Keith is barely breathing.

 

Shiro is left laying limp on the floor as the soldier walks away, and there’s thankfully a brief break before the third soldier decides to go, because Allura’s voice rings through the room, startling Keith and Lance more than it should.

 

“Lance, Keith,” she says. “We have the coordinates and are about to make the jump. Our plan from before still stands, but we would appreciate having you both at the bridge.”

 

Lance raises his head and he and Keith share a look. “Ah, Princess,” Keith says, carefully keeping his voice from betraying him, “I don’t know if we can, yet.”

 

There’s a brief pause, and then Allura’s voice comes over the comms again, “Why not?”

 

Lance speaks up this time, impressively steady. “The video feed I mentioned” he makes a quick gesture at Keith that Keith doesn’t understand but seems to be a soothing one “is still going. We don’t want to risk missing anything.”

 

“Hm,” Allura sounds suspicious, but doesn’t challenge them. “We should be there in about fifteen doboshes. Be back up here before then.”

 

Thankfully the link cuts out before the next sound comes from the hologram, and Keith would heave a sigh of relief except that the last soldier is stepping toward Shiro now.

 

“I didn’t tell them what it was,” Lance says in a hushed tone. His eyes are fixed on the display, too. “I just said that it was something Shiro wouldn’t want them seeing, and we’d hand over anything useful.”

 

Keith nods faintly, but the warmth he’d usually feel from Lance’s unexpected thoughtfulness is drowned mercilessly by the way Shiro’s eyes flicker open when the last soldier grabs his bruised and claw-marked hips, then slam shut as if he’s trying to escape into his own mind again.

 

Shiro groans through gritted teeth when the last soldier, the one who’d been holding his hips in the beginning, pushes in slowly, too slowly, before withdrawing until Shiro tenses all over, probably from the spines dragging at his entrance, and plunging in again. The pattern is repeated a few times before a frown of annoyance crosses the soldier’s face and he picks up the pace. He keeps going for a while, then slows to a lazy grind into Shiro’s now-unresisting body, scowling at the others. “I can’t believe I have to go last.”

 

The others look unapologetic beneath their helmets and the officer just chuckles, “You lost the game, that’s how it goes.”

 

“Still,” the soldier says, and looks down at Shiro’s ass, frowning. Then he draws a large hand back and before Keith can process it, he smacks his palm down across Shiro’s ass cheek. Shiro’s body goes taut as a bowstring and he chokes on air, and the soldier nods, giving a couple more thrusts. “Yeah, better,” he declares, and starts scattering bone-jarring blows in amidst his thrusting, making Shiro convulse each time. Shiro’s eyes are still tightly closed, but his face is as red as before, if not more so, and his shoulders shake even when he’s not being jolted by a harsh spank or by the pounding into his ass.

 

Lance looks ill again in Keith’s peripheral vision and Keith is trying very hard not to think. He has to keep repeating to himself, _Fifteen minutes_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some violence in this chapter, but if you've made it this far, you should be fine!

When Keith and Lance return to the bridge, they’re both silent and grim. There are still at least ten minutes to go before they arrive, but they couldn’t stay in Keith’s room any longer, not after the final image before the display shivered off, when the last soldier pulled out and the camera panned around to show the wreck the Galra had made of Shiro. Lance had been sick, and Keith was almost right behind him.

 

The others give them wary glances when they return, and Lance shakily accepts the careful hug Hunk offers. Keith steps back when Hunk starts towards him, though, shaking his head. He doesn’t trust himself not to hurt someone right now and he wants to save that for the right people.

 

Allura explains what they’ve found of the system visible in the video, and Coran shows them a projection of the space, pointing out where they’ll be able to hide the Castle. He admits that the Galra probably know they’re coming, unless showing them a room with windows was an oversight, after all, but he confidently shares that he has a few tricks up his sleeve and is actually familiar with this system in a way the Galra won’t expect.

 

Pidge quietly notes that she’s pretty sure the windows weren’t an oversight; the videos they all saw on the bridge were definitely recordings, given how long it had been since Shiro and Keith were captured, compared to the short times in between transmissions. And a recording meant the Galra would have had the chance to time what they sent very carefully. She’s still visibly worried about how the transmissions could be sent in the first place, in addition, since the Galra weren’t supposed to know where the Castle even was.

 

In all, no one is especially happy with their odds, but no one is willing to argue in favor of waiting, either. Keith and Lance shut down any possibility of that with their dark moods, anyway, and the others seem to sense that they shouldn’t ask.

 

It’s a quiet, tense trip. When they arrive and Coran confirms the presence of a Galra ship at the edge of their sensors, the Paladins bid Allura and Coran a quiet farewell before jogging off together to the Green Lion.

 

-

 

Keith silently thanks Pidge for engineering the Green Lion’s cloaking device as they book it toward the Galra ship, racing the cloaking’s time limit. They go visible to sensors again just as Green lands in a blind spot on the hull, and they all breathe a sigh of relief. They’re dropping into an empty hallway soon after, making as little noise as possible as they touch down one after another, jetpacks slowing their descent.

 

Coran wasn’t able to scan the ship for Shiro’s signature, not with the Castle hanging as far back as it is, so they’re depending on a pair of devices Hunk rigged up, little boxes that blink around the edges to show the direction and distance to Shiro like lodestones.

 

The four of them don’t talk. The plan has already been worked out and scrutinized as much as they had time for, so they just start down the hallway, bayards at the ready. Lance looks at Keith, his face drawn and serious, and they exchange a look of determination. Along the way, they come across just two patrols of sentries. Keith and Pidge cut them down before they have time to alert anyone, the only noises of battle being the sounds of metal shearing and energy shorting out, then the clang of robotic parts hitting the floor.

 

Soon enough, they hit the agreed-upon distance, and with one last shared grim nod, Lance and Pidge split off, going down a hallway that should lead to some of the ship’s vital controls. Keith and Hunk keep going, following the blinking light’s direction. As they get nearer the heart of the ship, the patrols become more frequent, and Keith is breathing hard as he cuts down his third pair of sentries. They’ve been lucky so far and Hunk hasn’t needed to fire his weapon and draw soldiers to their location, but Keith isn’t sure how long that luck will hold out.

 

Pidge’s hushed voice crackles over the comms, “You guys should probably find an alcove or something in about… three… two…”

 

Hunk grabs Keith by the elbow and pulls him into a side-hallway just as the ship rocks and alarms start blaring. “I really hope they’re okay,” Hunk is worrying under his breath as more soldiers and sentries than there should be start rushing past in the direction they came from, but Keith trusts Lance and Pidge to take care of themselves. If worst came to worst, Pidge had explained earlier, she and Lance were both skinny enough to fit into the ventilation systems, so disappearing from the scene of the crime would be undignified, but not an issue.

 

When the rush of Galra is down to the occasional sentry, Keith and Hunk dash out of hiding. Hunk has his bayard at the ready to deal with any large groups, but they’re lucky enough to only hit a few delays, and Keith deals with those with savage efficiency. The sentries aren’t the soldiers that hurt Shiro, but anything bearing the Empire’s markings is fair game now.

 

Finally, the display on the little box indicates that they’re practically right on top of Shiro. There’s only one door on the side of the hall the blinking light indicates, so Keith doesn’t hesitate before swinging his sword straight through it, sending both halves of the door clanging to the ground and leaving sheared metal on either side of the doorway. He rushes in without thinking, despite Hunk’s hissed, “Keith!” and scans the room.

 

It’s not a holding cell like Keith was expecting, but it’s still windowless and mostly featureless, no clues to its original function remaining. There are no visible threats, so the only thing Keith fully registers is Shiro, naked on his knees and leaning against the far wall.

 

Shiro’s head is still snapping to face the door as Keith’s footsteps pound toward him. Shiro starts to straighten up, though he winces when his weight rests on his ass directly over his bent legs again, his eyes widening. He tries to say something, or at least Keith assumes that from the muffled sound Shiro makes, but Keith can’t really tell because the Galra have strapped some sort of muzzle over the bottom half of Shiro’s face. It’s made of metal and is wrapped around Shiro’s head, covering his mouth and snaking down to cross under his jaw, holding his mouth closed. Still, Shiro keeps trying to talk, shaking his head emphatically.

 

“Shiro! It’s okay, calm down, we’ve got you,” Keith says through a tight throat, looking Shiro over quickly. Hunk is gasping something from the doorway, but it doesn’t sound like a warning, so Keith ignores it. The damn collar is still around Shiro’s neck, and this time the short cable extending from it is attached to the wall around waist height, answering the question of why Shiro is on his knees. For some reason, Shiro’s remaining arm is bent and resting behind him, and it moves oddly as Shiro tries to emphasize something. A quick look behind shows that the cause is another short cable running down his spine and linking the back of the collar to another cuff around Shiro’s wrist.

 

Keith’s bayard is out and activated immediately, and he’s deeply relieved to find that the blade easily cuts through the cable leashing Shiro to the wall. He’s about to deal more carefully with the cable keeping Shiro’s arm immobilized when he hears a nervous, “Keith…” from the doorway.

 

Hunk is standing just inside the door, looking down the hallway. He looks shaken up, more so every time his glance drifts to Shiro and then darts away, and Keith kind of regrets not telling Hunk and Pidge on the trip over that they should be prepared to find Shiro in some uncomfortable state.

 

“I think we’ve got company,” Hunk calls all the same, readying his own bayard. Keith swears and wraps an arm around Shiro’s waist, bracing him and hauling him to his feet, and they move toward the door as quickly as Shiro can limp. Shiro’s face has gone white in Keith’s peripheral vision, but Keith can’t take the moment to check on him when there are five Galra guards in the hallway and at least three times as many robotic sentries, converging on the room from both sides.

 

“Goddamn it,” Keith mutters with great feeling, and he lets go of Shiro, quickly ushering him to lean on the wall beside the door, hopefully out of range.

 

The guards aren’t shooting yet, though their guns are drawn and they’re steadily approaching. None of them appear familiar to Keith, and he’s fleetingly disappointed. Hunk visibly hesitates, gritting his teeth, then darts out into the doorway long enough to let out a half-raging, half-panicked yell and open fire. The Galra and sentries not felled by the initial burst start shooting in return, and Hunk ducks around the side of the doorway again just in time to not get hit.

 

“We have to clear a path through them, we won’t make it if they trap us in here!” Keith calls to Hunk over the sound of laser fire.

 

Hunk nods and returns, “On it!” Another dart into the doorway, another blast of scattered energy from the yellow bayard, and more Galra fall. There are still a lot standing, though, and Keith growls in frustration. There are too many left for him to run into the hallway and cut them down, especially if he doesn’t want to get in Hunk’s way, and he can’t risk getting separated from Shiro. So instead, he grips the hilt of his blade tightly and balances on the balls of his feet, ready to fling himself at the first enemy to come within lunging range.

 

Even with Hunk’s blanketing fire, there are so many guards and sentries that Keith has to employ his bayard sooner than he’d like. Reinforcements are rapidly arriving and the front line of Galra is pressing closer and closer, apparently trying to force Keith and Hunk back into the room. Every now and then Keith sneaks a glimpse at Shiro, who has slumped back to his knees and is struggling madly to free his arm, eyes stricken above the muzzle, but in the next half-second Keith is pulled back into battle with a fresh guard.

 

Keith has his shield activated and he and Hunk keep trying to get into a more useful formation, but every time Keith starts to bend his knees so he can go low and fend the closest Galra off while Hunk goes high and deals with the rest, another sentry will fire at Hunk and Keith will have to straighten up to catch the shot with his shield. The battle isn’t going well; reinforcements are swarming in, two for every enemy that falls, and the Paladins are slowly being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Keith yells out when a blast goes over his shield and catches his shoulder. A guard uses the distraction to body-slam him, knocking him back a few steps, but a few steps is enough, and a couple of sentries run right through Hunk’s strafing fire to slam their damaged bodies into him, sending him stumbling back, as well.

 

Then the Galra and sentries are shoving their way into the room, forcing Keith and Hunk onto the defensive, every second a struggle to dodge in time, block a shot, try to get in a hit of their own. Keith doesn’t even notice the large shape coming through the doorway until he hears an unpleasantly familiar voice rise above the combat. “Put your weapons down.”

 

Even though the firing stops, Keith is busy ignoring that command and taking a swing at a guard when his eyes fall on the source of the voice. He freezes. Sendak is there, standing just inside the doorway with his enormous metal hand wrapped around as much of Shiro’s torso as it can encircle and holding him so his toes just barely brush the ground. The tips of the claws dig into Shiro’s ribs hard enough to draw blood. Shiro is struggling against the hold, eyes narrowed and the visible half of his face creased with rage.

 

Keith readjusts the hold on his blade, eyeing the distance and obstacles between him and Sendak, but he pauses when Sendak’s grip tightens around Shiro and forces a pained noise through the muzzle. Keith slowly lowers his bayard, still trying to think of a way out of this. Shiro looks humiliated, even as he squirms against Sendak’s hold and tries to kick backwards.

 

Sendak is obviously pleased, standing unconcerned behind his forces, the two Paladins held off by his hostage. “Only two of you?” he asks after a gloating silence. “I heard your companions were busy elsewhere, but I would have thought you would bring more backup to retrieve your leader.” He seems unimpressed. “Of course,” he muses, faking an idle tone rather badly, “it could just be that you aren’t taking this seriously. He’s not much use to you anymore, after all.”

 

Keith wants to rip the smile off Sendak’s face and he assumes Hunk shares his feelings, judging by the anger in his voice when he yells back, “He’s worth ten of you, Sendak!”

 

Sendak pauses, then shakes his head. “Soon enough, you will learn about true strength and weakness. If you’re lucky, you might survive long enough to become strong and useful to the Empire. This one, though… he had his chances.” Sendak’s voice is hard, but Keith can barely hear it over the ringing in his ears as Sendak’s flesh hand rises – but before Keith can leap forward, damn the guns aimed at him, the hand stops, and Keith is momentarily too bewildered to respond. He was sure Sendak was about to move to end Shiro’s life, but instead, Sendak’s hand is…

 

Sendak’s hand is behind Shiro and forcing its way between his thighs, and Keith yells “No!” and Hunk cries out “Leave him alone!” as Shiro starts writhing for a new reason, his head tipping back and eyes clenched shut in pain. Keith stands there in impotent burning rage, too aware of the multiple sentries and guards between him and Sendak and the dangerous hold Sendak has on Shiro’s body. Sendak works his fingers inside Shiro for a second longer, then withdraws them and looks at them contemptuously for a moment.

 

“He could have been a Galra weapon, but he wasted any potential the druids saw in him. Now we’re burdened with just another Galra bitch.” Disgusted, Sendak roughly wipes his glistening fingers off onto Shiro’s muzzle. The shiny smears left behind are pearly and tinged with pink.

 

“Oh my god,” Hunk breathes out, sounding ill. “Oh my god.” Keith grits his teeth and is about to say ‘fuck it’ and charge in anyway when a single laser blast rips through the room.

 

Sendak roars and drops Shiro, both hands coming up to clutch at the smoking ruin of his cybernetic eye, and the room descends into chaos. Hunk yells and immediately whirls around, strafing the room with laser fire at Galra-head-height and taking out a number of unfortunate guards. Keith goes low and cuts his way through the room to Shiro, planting himself between Sendak and where Shiro lays on the floor, currently scooting himself toward the wall and out of the way.

 

Keith doesn’t wait for Sendak to recover from reeling over the damage to his eye and lunges right in for the kill. Sendak growls and just barely blocks the stab with his robot arm, sparks flying. Keith lets his sword drag along the arm only to use the momentum to spin around to Sendak’s side and take another swing, slipping up Sendak’s armor and into a joint. Pulling his bloodied bayard free costs Keith a precious second, though, and he’s sent flying by a heavy blow from the metal hand. The Paladin armor catches the worst of it, and Keith tumbles as he lands, managing to end up in a crouch and charging right back in despite the now-wrenching pain in his injured shoulder.

 

He and Sendak clash over and over again, metal screeching harshly on metal. Their fight on Arus was utterly unbalanced in Sendak’s favor, but between Keith’s training since then, Sendak’s loss of an eye, and the smaller room preventing Sendak from getting a good wind-up for his arm, things are almost even. It helps that Keith is fighting with more viciousness than ever before, his vision gone red and tunneled in on only Sendak. Vaguely, Keith sees the occasional sentry take aim at his unprotected side or back, but he can’t spare any attention for them, and every one of them drops to laser fire from somewhere above, anyway.

 

Sendak makes yet another swipe and Keith dances out of reach again, but his back hits a wall in the process and he abruptly realizes that the last few near-misses had been planned, and Sendak has been playing with him. It wasn’t the fair fight he thought it was, and horror seizes Keith’s lungs. Sendak has a smug sneer on his face now – he’s steered Keith into a corner, and there’s nowhere to dodge.

 

The awful realization barely has time to take root before Sendak is roaring and pulling his arm back, winding up for a powerful blow. Keith brings his bayard and shield up to guard, distantly aware that he won’t be able to withstand the inhuman force of the impact, trapped with his back to the wall like this.

 

Sendak swings forward, but instead of landing the killing blow, he jolts to the side before it can connect. His fist crashes into the wall beside Keith, leaving a jagged crater in the metal.

 

Keith is distantly shocked, but the feeling doesn’t really register; now that death has skipped him over, he’s beyond analyzing anything. Vengeance is finally in sight as Sendak pauses to recover his balance and Keith’s body moves on its own, his mind occupied by the sound of Shiro’s screams and the expression on Shiro’s face as he was violated again and again on Sendak’s orders. Keith’s vision narrows. He moves instinctively, his sword plunging forward and driving deep into the narrow gap between armor plates under Sendak’s arm. Sendak roars and jerks forward again for some reason. His own momentum pushes him farther onto Keith’s blade.

 

Sendak is still howling, and blood sprays out of his mouth with the spittle. Keith shoves forward with a snarl and without mercy, cramming his blade as deep into Galra flesh and bone as it will go, so deep that Keith’s knuckles brush against the armor on Sendak’s side. Sendak tries to raise his mechanical fist above his head for a final strike, but he abruptly jerks to the side for a third time, sliding off Keith’s sword with a wet sucking noise and onto the floor.

 

Without Sendak’s bulk obscuring him, Keith finally sees the cause of Sendak’s distraction – Shiro is there, still bound and muzzled, but breathing hard and recovering his balance from where he’d rammed his shoulder into Sendak’s side. Shiro makes eye contact and nods at Keith, then staggers back up against the wall again, glaring at where Sendak is trying to push himself off the floor.

 

The sound of laser fire died down at some point, but Keith is only peripherally aware of the silent and groaning bodies scattered around the room, or of Hunk reaching up to help Lance down from an air vent near the ceiling with its cover blown off. Instead, he’s looking down at Sendak. Sendak’s huge bulk is sprawled out and there is blood covering his chin and bubbling up with each breath, but he’s starting to sit up, bracing himself with his flesh arm. Sendak tries to draw his metal arm back, vicious to the last, but the forceful movement apparently aggravates something and he crumples back down.

 

Keith stalks forward, his blade dripping a trail behind him as he goes to stand next to Sendak’s head. Sendak is still breathing and glaring hatefully, and Keith glares right back. Sendak takes in a rasping wet breath and begins to sneer something, but Keith has heard enough words from Sendak’s mouth and doesn’t wait to find out what it would have been. For whatever reason, armor for Galra generals only protects the bottom part of the neck, so when Keith’s bayard swings down, time seeming to slow like it had when Sendak had taken Shiro’s arm in the Arena, the blade bites deep into Sendak’s throat without impediment and keeps going until it clangs against the floor.

 

The sound almost echoes in the room, silent except for the occasional groan of an incapacitated guard.

 

Keith is still staring down at Sendak’s corpse, an unconscious snarl tugging at his lips, when Pidge’s voice comes over the comms, startling everyone. “Guys, do you have Shiro?” She sounds harried. “I can give you about ten minutes before the other guys are able to access your level, but that’s all, so you’d better hurry!”

 

“…Yeah,” Keith hears himself say into the quiet, his voice throaty from exertion and the cries of battle. He finally looks up from Sendak’s corpse and sees Shiro, slumped against a wall and in pretty bad shape, but alive and still fighting and close enough to touch. “Yeah,” he says, swallowing hard. “We got him.”

 

-

 

They hurry back to the hallway they entered through, Keith leading the way with Hunk behind him, carrying Shiro. Shiro’s bonds have been cut through and the muzzle removed, but they’ll need better tools to get his collar and cuff off and he’s not in any shape to keep up as they hustle through the empty hallways. He seemed embarrassed when Hunk first scooped him up, but when he tried to protest, his voice worn thin from things Keith can’t think about right now, Hunk had just shaken his head and said, “No. Nope. Definitely not. We just got you back and I really need to hug you right now. But, we also have to move, so I’m going to compromise and carry you, okay? Because that means I can hug you and we can run at the same time, and then we can get off the giant alien warship.”

 

Lance had shrugged and forced a crooked smile. “Can’t argue with that logic, can you, Shiro?”

 

Now, Lance brings up the rear, keeping his bayard out and glancing behind them every few steps, hyperaware of possible pursuers. Keith’s blood is still pumping with adrenaline, so he’s almost disappointed when Pidge’s work holds and they make it to where they left the Green Lion without incident.

 

“There you guys are!” Pidge is exclaiming from the pilot’s seat as they pile inside, all five Paladins cramming into the cockpit. “Where’s – oh!” Pidge’s first reaction on catching sight of Shiro is unbridled joy. Her second is a squeak of shock and mortification and whirling away so fast that Keith is a little surprised she doesn’t give herself whiplash.

 

“Sorry,” Shiro rasps, blushing just as much as Pidge and belatedly letting go of Hunk to cover himself with his hand. Hunk startles and quickly turns around so his back is to Pidge to preserve Shiro’s modesty.

 

“Um. Right,” Pidge says, foundering a little. She recovers quickly, though, and when she turns back, she looks a little teary (though not as bad as Hunk was for the last half of the trip back). “Hi, Shiro,” she says around Hunk, shielding her eyes with a hand. “It’s good to see you – I mean, to have you back!”

 

Lance and Hunk and Shiro manage to force little laughs at that, and Pidge sets about lifting off and engaging the cloaking device as Hunk carefully sets Shiro down and Lance fetches an emergency blanket for Shiro to wrap himself in. Shiro’s armor is in a pile in one of the back corners, thoughtfully retrieved by Pidge, but they don’t have any actual clothes for him. Keith just stands there dumbly, belatedly crouching down to stay on Shiro’s level once he’s settled in, still drinking in the sight of Shiro back with them in more or less one piece. Shiro himself is quiet and still shell-shocked and sitting very carefully, though he makes the effort to smile back every time someone aims a wobbly smile in his direction.

 

“Now the lions?” Lance asks almost reluctantly, also sitting on the floor next to Shiro.

 

“Now the lions,” Hunk confirms.

 

They fly close to the ship, Green’s cloaking keeping them hidden until they’re right outside the hangar where Pidge detected the Lions’ signatures.

 

“Ready?” Pidge says, looking over at Keith.

 

Keith takes one last look at Shiro and smiles shakily at him. “It’s good to have you back,” he says softly, and then to Pidge, his voice firm again, “Ready.”

 

Green’s head bursts through the side of the ship to the screaming of metal, and Keith is ready to run out the second her jaws open. Hunk is right behind him, laying down cover fire to distract the handful of startled sentries left to guard the Lions, and they run full-tilt across the hangar to Red. The energy barrier goes down as soon as Keith approaches and he has a moment of déjà vu, but he brushes it aside and they board Red just seconds after leaving Green.

 

Alarms are blaring and sentries are firing futilely at the Red Lion as she stands and stretches, but by then Green has withdrawn her head from the side of the ship and the vacuum of space sucks most of the sentries out in a weird echo of Keith’s own tactics getting Red in the first place, and the remaining few sentries are too busy clinging to anything anchored to shoot at them.

 

Back at the controls of Red, Keith breathes deeply, greeting her mentally and accepting her worry and rage over what happened. He assures her that he’s got her now. They’re fixing all of it, as much as they can, and she sends a feeling of comfort and lends him strength as they bound across the hangar and bust the hole Green left even wider. Hunk is repeating a quiet litany of “oh god oh god oh god” and clinging to the back of Keith’s chair, but Keith is busy just feeling the exhilaration of flying Red again, something he’d missed more than he’d been able to consider through the constant rage and fear.

 

“You remember where she was?” Pidge asks over the comm system.

 

“Yep. Right on it,” he says, and Red turns to face the side of the Galra ship, directly outside of where the Black Lion was resting. He shoves a lever and Red obliges with fierce pleasure, shooting a beam of fire at the hull. The beam burns and blasts until a hole appears, then widens, and he worries at the edges of it until there’s a gaping hole in the side of the ship and the Black Lion comes drifting out, her force field deactivated, amidst the cloud of debris.

 

“Gotcha,” he says quietly, and louder, “Pidge, she’s out!”

 

Green swoops in and carefully butts up against Black, redirecting her course and sending her slowly spinning. Together, Red and Green propel and steer Black toward the Castle with frequent Lion-to-Lion nudges.

 

A worn-out, welcome voice comes faintly over the comms, noting with some dazed amusement, “This is… really undignified, guys.”

 

Lance’s voice follows, cracking a little with pent-up emotion but upbeat all the same. “Hey, she’s letting us do it. Wouldn’t have taken her energy barrier down and come out, otherwise.”

 

“…Fair enough,” Shiro allows.

 

“Besides,” Hunk chimes in from beside Keith, having recovered some from their bumpy exit and now forcefully cheerful, “it’s kinda fun. It’s like… like space lion air hockey.”

 

“Ooh, maybe space lion curling?” Lance suggests.

 

“We’re knocking into her directly, not smoothing the way,” Pidge objects, joining in. “Definitely space lion shuffleboard.”

 

There’s still some distance to the Castle, but the Galra ship is in too much chaos to pursue them, between the Lions’ damage, Sendak’s death, and, mostly, Pidge’s work sabotaging all the fighter ships’ hangar doors. And they have Shiro back. Keith actually smiles in giddy relief, and makes his own attempt – “Space lion bowling?”

 

There’s barely a moment’s pause before Lance comes over the comms. “Just ‘cause of that, I’m nominating Pidge to actually push Black into the hangar, buddy.”

 

It’s not especially funny, but all of them laugh anyway, almost drunk with relief.


End file.
